yarnpkg/yarn

Autoclean deprecated cache folders (OS X, linux, etc)

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#3733 opened on Jun 26, 2017

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 (6 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)JavaScript (41,514 stars) (2,731 forks)batch import
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Description

This is more of an enquiry, as I noticed yesterday when going through my disk usage that Yarn was taking up a fair bit of space for it's cache. This is not a problem in itself, but what I found odd is that there were seemingly two cache locations, so I was wondering if Yarn is using both, or if one of them is a legacy location that hasn't been cleaned up.

I found cache files both in my user directory under ~/.yarn-cache as well as in~/Library/Caches/Yarn.

I cleaned up both and from what it seems only the Library one has been recreated. Is this the one in use now? If so it might be a good idea to have yarn auto-clean the old location if there's still files present there.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
javascriptnodejs
Domain
cli
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
needs investigation
Prerequisites
knowledge of Node.jsfamiliarity with Yarn cache structure
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
20
Research direction
Examine the Yarn cache directory logic in the codebase to identify the two cache locations (e.g., ~/.yarn cache and ~/Library/Caches/Yarn). Check if there are any existing utility functions for cache cleanup. Review comments in the issue for additional context from maintainers about which location is deprecated. Then implement a simple cleanup script that removes files from the old location and optionally moves them to the new one.